Bai He had just made a guarantee, promising Kraken that the Black Candle Colossus would definitely arrive within visual range within three hours. However, the next moment, she received news from those who had urgently returned from the Boundary Sea.
“What?! The Black Candle Colossus is missing?”
She violently grabbed the man’s collar. “What happened? Didn’t I tell you to guide the Black Candle Colossus forward? How could it just disappear?”
The messenger was scared out of his wits. The atmosphere in the hall made it feel like he was about to be torn limb from limb on the spot. He hurried to recount everything truthfully.
“W-We were guiding it perfectly fine, but then, it… it suddenly entered a pocket dimension and vanished! We couldn’t track it at all!”
“Entered a pocket dimension?”
Everyone in the hall frowned simultaneously.
“Isn’t it impossible to enter pocket dimensions in the depths of the Boundary Sea?”
It was a known fact that dimensional beasts could not enter pocket dimensions within the Boundary Sea. It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t do it, but rather that pocket dimensions simply didn’t exist within the Boundary Sea.
Bai He turned a questioning gaze toward Kraken, but the only answer she received was a shake of the head.
The messenger’s face turned pale. “B-But we saw it with our own eyes!”
Bai He’s killing intent flared. Her first thought was that these cowards had gotten scared and fled. After all, the task of inducing the Black Candle Colossus to move forward was as dangerous as trying to survive at a nuclear test site. It was normal for deserters to appear. They had assigned supervisors, but even then, one hundred percent compliance couldn’t be guaranteed.
It was a pity. If any of them knew mystical methods like soul searching, she would have definitely plucked the information straight from his brain.
At that moment, Kraken spoke again. “It is indeed impossible in the depths of the Boundary Sea, but it is possible near the shore.”
Bai He immediately looked at the man. “Where were you when the Black Candle Colossus disappeared?”
“We had already left the depths of the Boundary Sea. Our position was… here…!” He pulled out a nautical chart.
The crowd gathered to look. Indeed, they had already exited the deep waters. Although they were still a bit far from the nearest landing point, there was a high probability that what Kraken said was true.
Their expressions were all grim.
—
According to their established common sense, Light-chaser level dimensional beasts do not enter pocket dimensions. This was because such a situation had never occurred in history. Light-chaser levels rampaged wherever they went without opposition, so why would they ever need to enter a pocket dimension?
Furthermore, it was possible that pocket dimensions couldn’t even withstand the presence of something as powerful as a Light-chaser level, which was why people always held the impression that they wouldn’t enter them.
It was too late to realize that this stereotype was a mistake. The reality was that they could no longer track the movements of the Black Candle Colossus, which meant a massive amount of uncertainty had been added to the plan.
In their ideal scenario, the best option would have been for the Black Candle Colossus to land within the territory of the Dragon Kingdom.
Now, things had gone south. Not only could they not determine the landing site, but they didn’t even know when it would reappear.
“What’s the panic?”
Suddenly, a voice from the hall pierced through the gloom hanging over everyone’s heads.
A graceful female figure appeared.
“You finally decided to come back?” someone scolded. “When you were sent to help release the Black Candle Colossus earlier, it seems you were playing some little games?”
“Doesn’t it suffice as long as it doesn’t affect the big picture?”
The woman’s appearance caused Kraken’s gaze to fixate on her.
“You are a bit strange,” Kraken said, tentacles twitching as if ready to strike.
“Lord Kraken, please wait.”
Bai He risked her life to step in and advise. “She still has a great use. It is not suitable to act against her now.”
This woman was their Collaborator. She was also a collaborator they could not refuse, because she came from the most mysterious power—the Magic Union.
It was her magic cover that allowed their people to successfully deceive the world and board the super-large Star Ring to carry out the large-scale attack.
Last year at Wangchuan in the Boundary Sea Pass, it was because of her intervention that a stitched-together monstrosity like Wangchuan was created—a fusion warrior who could also use magic.
According to what they knew about this woman, she didn’t seem to belong to any single faction. She acted alone, did as she pleased, and knew quite a few spells.
Who wouldn’t be envious of someone who could use magic? Therefore, they were very keen on winning this woman over to their side.
The woman had never revealed her name, so they could only refer to her as the “Collaborator.”
“Miss Collaborator, do you have a solution?” Bai He asked in a low voice.
“It’s not exactly a solution, just mending the fold after the sheep are gone.” The Collaborator smiled and said, “Since we can no longer control the movements of the Black Candle Colossus, why not take advantage of the fact that the Magical Girls haven’t recovered yet and launch a direct attack on the target location right now? Even if Xingyue appears at this time, she will find it difficult to handle the situation.”
Everyone fell silent.
Of course, the final decision had to be left to Kraken, as it was the strongest combat force.
As for the Gluttonous Colossus, it was already useless, because they had no idea where it was.
Under the questioning gazes of the crowd, Kraken slowly nodded.
It didn’t have much time left.
It couldn’t allow any more variables to occur.
—
Dragon Kingdom, somewhere, a highly classified research institute, code-named ‘075’.
The security level of this place was so high that even national security departments had no right to access it. In the entire country, no more than ten people knew of its existence.
The security registration of the 075 Research Institute was extremely high. Even the security personnel had to stay there year-round and were not allowed to leave. Not only was there a special forces unit composed of fusion warriors, but there were even five King-class fusion warriors.
A full five!
This was already among the absolute top-tier existence within the power currently possessed by humanity. Whether it was ordinary spies attempting to infiltrate or special forces sneaking in, they would all die regardless of how many came.
The security level of the capital was hardly better than this.
And within the 075 Research Institute, a group of academicians with countless honorary titles were racking their brains over a single object. Staying awake for days and nights was common, and some had even been hospitalized because of it.
On this day, the political commissar of the institute found an academician in a white lab coat, stuffed a report into his hands, and began to complain bitterly.
“Academician Zhou Shaojun, we have already applied over 113 experimental modes to Item 99. The human and material resources invested are beyond count. The total funds spent amount to over four hundred billion. Even the aerospace industry doesn’t burn money like we do! But despite all this investment, every time it’s zero results… zero results! Every method that could be tried has been tried. We really can’t think of anything else we can do!”
Even if you threw a brick into the water, you could observe two or three physical phenomena worth writing a report about.
But the experiments they conducted on Item 99 were incredibly numerous, yet they provided absolutely no feedback.
A complete, absolute, zero!
They didn’t know its structure, they didn’t know the material, they didn’t know what was inside, and they didn’t even know if it was a biological entity.
Aside from knowing that Item 99 could not react with anything, their understanding of it remained exactly where it was three years ago.
Facing this predicament, Chief Academician Zhou Shaojun also furrowed his brows tightly, unable to say anything in rebuttal.
He had achieved countless things in his life. His lifelong research was enough to earn him a dozen Nobel Prizes in Physics, but now he was completely stuck in place by this tiny object.
After the political commissar left, Zhou Shaojun closed his eyes in pain within the empty room.
“Sigh… The box. Three years ago, we had the heaven-defying luck to obtain it, yet we can’t uncover even a single secret of its existence?”
The box!
The mysterious object that countless people were searching for. Rumored to hide the ultimate secrets of the Boundary Sea, its level of mystery even surpassed that of ancient artifacts, making all sorts of monsters and demons salivate over it.
Its appearance was enough to trigger a large-scale local hot war. Even the five countries that controlled the world might personally intervene and fight a conventional war over it.
Speaking of which, the process by which they obtained the box was quite coincidental.
To describe it in a few words—it was a gift from the heavens.
A Boundary Sea border defense unit was patrolling near the depths and happened to fish it out.
They really just happened to be passing by and picked it up.
At the time, they once thought that the country’s destiny had arrived! It was unstoppable. But looking at it now, this national destiny was instead being firmly blocked by their own level of technology.